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UNESCO and the World Bank hold a regional symposium on effective career trajectories for teachers in Central Asia
Education experts and decision-makers from across the region participated in the event to exchange knowledge on developing teacher policies that attract the best candidates into the profession and help retain them.
UNESCO places teachers at the centre of its efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This event is directly contributing to the implementation of the national TES statements in relation to the teaching force. The 2015 Incheon Declaration calls on Member States to “ensure that teachers and educators are empowered, adequately recruited, well-trained, professionally qualified and motivated”, but also, importantly, that they are “supported within well-resourced, efficient and effectively governed systems”.
The countries of Central Asia have been struggling with learning poverty, stagnating human capital development, and widening learning gaps between students of different socio-economic backgrounds. Tackling these issues is partly on the shoulders of the region’s teachers. Yet the teaching profession in Central Asia has for a long time failed to attract and retain the most qualified candidates.
We cannot have engineers, doctors, and pilots unless we have teachers who can train students and equip them with the knowledge and skills required for these professions. The foundational knowledge for all professions is laid early on with basic and secondary education and without the best teachers in our schools, we cannot prepare the nation to contribute to their national economies and actively participate in the global economy.
Students in the Kyrgyz Republic entering pedagogical studies have, on average, the second lowest marks in the Republican Test (which forms the basis for university admissions in the country). In Kazakhstan, around 30% of teachers quit within the first three years of joining the profession.
The governments in Central Asia are working to design teachers’ career trajectories that motivate teachers to deepen their knowledge and skills and expand their contribution to quality education in the country. Kazakhstan has recently approved teacher professional standards with an updated competency and qualification framework for teachers. Similarly, the Kyrgyz Republic has re-approved regulations on the procedure for attestation of teachers, opening opportunities for some vertical career progression. Uzbekistan is also currently reforming salary progression for teachers, developing and implementing an attestation process, and rethinking teachers’ career structure.
This is where development partners like the World Bank and UNESCO can step in and help foster knowledge sharing and expertise to advance policy discussion and identify areas of need and reform. The World Bank and UNESCO have been leading the “Skilled Teachers, Skilled Nation” initiative since 2021.
The first Online Central Asian Symposium on Education – Validation Workshop for Outline of Regional Report on Teacher Policies was held on 13th October 2021.
The second Online Central Asian Symposium on Education – Validation Workshop for Outline of Regional Report on Teacher Policies was held on 26th May 2022. The World Bank and UNESCO brought together a research team from the four countries – Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – with an international research lead and global advisors (from China, Hong Kong, and Russia) – to research teacher policies in Central Asia and work with government counterparts to develop concrete and implementable recommendations.
The third symposium was organized on 27th October 2022. The symposium presented an analysis of the current systems of selection, education, and recruitment of teachers in the region, shared best practices from within the region and globally, and involved government representatives from the Ministries of Education in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in co-designing possible solutions to the gaps and challenges facing the region in training and recruiting an effective teaching force.
